A History of the United States (Palgrave Essential by Philip Jenkins PDF

By Philip Jenkins

ISBN-10: 023050678X

ISBN-13: 9780230506787

This established introductory text provides a lucid, authoritative account of the process American background, discussing political, social, financial and cultural advancements. during this revised and updated new variation, Jenkins studies the 2008 presidential election, the commercial trouble and up to date environmental issues.

America's such a lot acclaimed historian provides the complex tale of the 12 months of the beginning of the USA of the United States. 1776 tells gripping tales: how a bunch of squabbling, disparate colonies turned the U.S., and the way the British Empire attempted to prevent them. a narrative with a solid of wonderful characters from George III to George Washington, to squaddies and their households, this exhilarating booklet is likely one of the nice items of ancient narrative.

Incorporating either archaeological and ethnohistorical proof, this quantity reexamines the position performed through local peoples in structuring interplay with Europeans. The extra entire ancient photo awarded can be of curiosity to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, and historical past.

This ebook presents facts that Labour in Trinidad and Tobago performed an essential function in undermining British colonialism and advocating for federation and self-government. moreover, there's emphasis at the pioneering efforts of the Labour circulate in social gathering politics, social justice, and dealing classification unity.

Extra resources for A History of the United States (Palgrave Essential Histories)

Example text

There is often an added implication here that the destroyed cultures represented a kind of ecological harmony that was obliterated by selfish capitalist and Christian Europeans. While a demographic catastrophe certainly did occur in Central and South America, the situation to the north was different, as the numbers were much smaller and the pace of conquest far slower. The most plausible suggestion is that around 1500 AD at least two million people lived north of what is now the Mexican border.

THE CONQUISTADORES As in South America, the first European presence in the north was Spanish, when Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida Page 7 in 1513. After the fall of Mexico in 1519–20 the Spanish conquistadores travelled north and south to seek new empires, often drawn by tales of wealthy cities beyond the next range of mountains or over the desert. Sometimes the stories were true, and by 1533 the great Inca civilization had been discovered and crushed. North America offered much poorer pickings.

Once returned, the horse provided the basis of the powerful and militarily dangerous culture encountered by nineteenth-century Americans. Plains society was based on the apparently inexhaustible buffalo herds: there may have been 60–70 million buffalo in any given year before the 1840s. Further west were still more varied ecologies, including the Great Basin, centered on Utah and Nevada and inhabited by tribes such as the Utes and Paiutes; and the plateau region of Page 6 modern Idaho. In much of what later became southern California, the harsh desert conditions prevented the existence of all but small, impoverished groups dependent on foraging.